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Thanks to services like NVIDIA GeForce Now and PlayStation Now, the gaming industry has been experimenting a lot with the act of streaming video games over an internet connection rather than running them locally on a console or PC. Now, the latest company to dip its toes in the streaming games market is Google.

On Monday, October 1, Google formally announced Project Stream — a new technology from the company that is designed to stream AAA video games to your computer using just an internet connection and web browser.

The technology and creativity behind these AAA video games is extraordinary—from incredible detail and life-like movement of the characters' skin, clothing, and hair, to the massive scale of the world in which the game unfolds, down to every last blade of grass. Every pixel is powered by an array of real-time rendering technology, artistry, visual effects, animation, simulation, physics and dynamics. We're inspired by the game creators who spend years crafting these amazing worlds, adventures and experiences, and we're building technology that we hope will support and empower that creativity.

To kickstart Project Stream, Google's looking for people in the U.S. to test drive the service with the opportunity to play Assassin's Creed Oddysey for free starting October 5 and going through mid-January. All you need is an internet connection of 25Mbs or higher and a desktop or laptop with Google Chrome.

What's the ultimate goal of Project Stream? While Google's yet to say one way or another, it's very possible that this will tie into reports from earlier this year of Google working on its own gaming console called "Yeti." We already know that Yeti will have a focus on cloud-based streaming, so it only seems logical that Project Stream is our first introduction to that.

Google's holding an event on October 9 to unveil the Pixel 3 and 3 XL, and should the company take some time to go into further detail about Project Stream and/or Yeti, we'll be sure to let you know.

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Back in June, there was a leak about Google's gaming plans. If that leak was true, this was just the first of several major moves they are making in the near future:

We haven’t heard many specifics about Google’s video game plans, but what we have heard is that it’s a three-pronged approach: 1) Some sort of streaming platform, 2) some sort of hardware, and 3) an attempt to bring game developers under the Google umbrella, whether through aggressive recruiting or even major acquisitions. That’s the word from five people who have either been briefed on Google’s plans or heard about them secondhand.

In recent months, however, the chatter about Google has gotten louder. At the Game Developers Conference in March of this year, Google representatives met with several big video game companies to gauge interest in its streaming platform, which is code-named Yeti, sources said. (The existence of Google’s Yeti was first reported by the website The Information earlier this year.) Google also took meetings at E3 in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, those sources said, and from what we’ve heard, the company is looking not just to woo game developers to the Yeti service but to buy development studios entirely. (Google did not respond to a request for comment.)

The leak was right about the streaming service. The leak may also be right about them planning to release their own console and building up their own 1st party by buying studios. We might just have 4 players next gen; Sony, MS, Nintendo, and Google.

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Back in June, there was a leak about Google's gaming plans. If that leak was true, this was just the first of several major moves they are making in the near future:

We haven’t heard many specifics about Google’s video game plans, but what we have heard is that it’s a three-pronged approach: 1) Some sort of streaming platform, 2) some sort of hardware, and 3) an attempt to bring game developers under the Google umbrella, whether through aggressive recruiting or even major acquisitions. That’s the word from five people who have either been briefed on Google’s plans or heard about them secondhand.

In recent months, however, the chatter about Google has gotten louder. At the Game Developers Conference in March of this year, Google representatives met with several big video game companies to gauge interest in its streaming platform, which is code-named Yeti, sources said. (The existence of Google’s Yeti was first reported by the website The Information earlier this year.) Google also took meetings at E3 in Los Angeles a few weeks ago, those sources said, and from what we’ve heard, the company is looking not just to woo game developers to the Yeti service but to buy development studios entirely. (Google did not respond to a request for comment.)

The leak was right about the streaming service. The leak may also be right about them planning to release their own console and building up their own 1st party by buying studios. We might just have 4 players next gen; Sony, MS, Nintendo, and Google.

If Google joins then Apple will no doubt shortly enough. No way they let their main two competitors (Google and Microsoft) have this market war with Sony and Nintendo. We are probably going to go from 3 to 5 in a matter of a few years, and I doubt there will be many 3rd party studios left.

Just in the US? My internet connection exceeds the requirements and I'd like to try it out, guess I'm out of luck here.

I'm glad they're upping the internet requirement though, I use PS Now frequently and am amazed how well it works but since i think it's optimised to work on 5-15mb/s, it doesn't even offer better quality for those with faster connections, hopefully they are working on adding options like that.